Adios Sandtander : Where To Next ?

hungryheart

I have been with Girobank/Alliance and Leicester Bank now for 27 years.
Until recently very few complaints or problems in that time.

Until Manuel took over :

1 ) Refused a loan at the advertised APR on their website, on here, and on my current account log in. They said 7.7% was only typical ! I got 12.5 % !
This despite clean credit record, no debts at all, and a long history of previous car loans etc with Girobank.
The customer service was a joke.
So stuff them, I went to Tesco Bank who saved me £700 with far superior service and 3% cheaper.;)


2) I have been locked out of my Santander Zero credit card online account for three months now :mad:
Numerous long expensive phone calls and three pin envelopes with new log in codes and I am still locked out, and lost my patience with them.
I will clear balance soon, and close the account. Adios.

3) Suspect charges on current account, unable to get through on the phones etc etc.



HELP NEEDED !

How easy would it be to move from A&L to another bank ?

What time scale is needed ?

Will my new bank do everything for me ?

What are the pit falls ?

Any suggestions to help me as I in the best Dragons Den way " I'm Out " !


This is not any easy step but I can see Santander are going to be more trouble than a dodgy paella

My preferred choice of new bank is the Coop/Smile : any thoughts on this too please.


Thanks for your help in advance .

Gav8

Well done making the decision to move, every person making that decision makes me happy

Most banks will arrange for your direct debits etc to be transferred to your new account, unfortunately A&L are dragging their heals providing the details to the other banks. Hopefully this is due to the sheer volume of people moving away. For you and me this means transfer to another bank is going to take longer.

AnonymousForObviousReason

In my past experience, moving banks has been fairly easy. If you can keep enough cash in both accounts to cover bills regardless of which one it comes out of it will help, any major mistakes and the bank covers you but easier not going through that process. I had good experience with companies that couldn't collect -including RBS (expect that to change in England next year).

I started moving this week (to First Direct). When you move, check your account (remember extra 4 on start of your account number isn't part of your account number it's only 8 digits, also you have a new sort code - what you didn't get a letter either - apparently old one should work but that's according to that trustful source ... Santander.

If you don't get a bonus for using the transfer service, you could do it yourself. Either way it's wise to record all the different ones so can be easily setup if worse comes to worse.

Fedz

Open new account with internet banking. Open a text file on comp, login to outgoing bank, goto your payments & transfers, goto edit each one & copy/paste the details into the text file plus record each DD/SO.

When in new incoming bank set them all back up (no errors as you've copied & pasted from original).

When each DD has gone for that month, go online or call each company up up & give new bank details so it gives them a month to settle with your new bank details but, you don't have to worry which account it's going from as it's just gone for that month from your old account but, wait til you see it setup in your new account so is safe to cancel in old account.

Inform work or whoever with your new bank details.

Hey presto to new bank, adios & good riddance to old. Job done. Easy

tgon

In the process of moving from A&L to First Direct (always a Which? fave!) but the process is taking soooooooooooo long as Sandtan-despair don't seem to want respond... Really fed up with it.

Fairzo

I moved from Satan-der to First Direct last February and it went ok, the only problems were a couple of companies that failed to activate the new Direct Debit details. It was simple enough to spot that they weren't showing on the FD website and sort it out over the phone.

At that time though I suspect that Satan-der were merely really useless, rather than the really really useless that they have now become.

tellmeitsfriday

Scamtander refused to give FD my DD details, so I performed a sit-in in the branch until they printed them out for me - one by one! I then faxed this to FD and all my DDs are debiting correctly from my new account.

An lunch hour wasted, or 3 months of stress from scamtander saved. Not sure. I am glad I did it though!

Fairzo

tellmeitsfriday wrote: »

Scamtander refused to give FD my DD details, so I performed a sit-in in the branch until they printed them out for me - one by one! I then faxed this to FD and all my DDs are debiting correctly from my new account.

An lunch hour wasted, or 3 months of stress from scamtander saved. Not sure. I am glad I did it though!

Genius!!!!